Eyes like a Car Crash, Body like a Whip lash
by bettertoburnout
Summary: Beca x Chloe; pointless oneshot, Chloe is involved in a car accident and suddenly Beca is forced to realise just how much she means to her and how temperate existence truly is song extracts from Deathbeds - Bring Me The Horizon


The lights flashed blue and red even through my tightly closed eyes. I could hear someone saying my name, but faintly, as if they were in another room, behind a closed door. I felt a hand on my own, tugging, trying to pull me back. Back to where though? I'd forgotten where I was meant to be, here or there? This room or the next? I guess someone wanted me to go back at any rate, but I felt so calm without the weight of breath in my chest, and as I felt my pulse drop slower and slower I felt so relaxed. Was I dying? Was that where I was? I suddenly became aware of cold gravel at my fingertips, beneath my head, and a flash of memory forced its way into the front of my mind, all squealing tyres and explosive pain. All of a sudden I stopped accepting, and starting resisting the feeling that was rapidly becoming dominant. There was a face in my mind's eye and a name in my heart. Beca. I tightened my fingers around the hand. I felt it respond quickly, and heard a voice, closer this time, shouting to someone. Then I felt lips next to my ear, and hot breath that tied me back to reality.

"You'll be okay. It's going to be okay honey."

Soon after making the conscious decision to stay alive, I passed out, but this time into a different room, one that hung somewhere between life and death, and I knew that for now I was safe in this hazy, liminal space.

[beca]

I was mixing when I got the call. It was 2am, and my phone lay dormant beside me, only to start buzzing furiously out of nowhere, causing me to scramble in an attempt to silence it. Kimmy Jin, thankfully, merely mumbled in her sleep and shifted in her bed. I answered the call tentatively, only glancing at the caller ID - Chloe. What was she doing calling me at 2am? I knew that she had an early class the next day, so would normally be asleep...

The voice that answered my initial, "hello?" was not Chloe's. Another female voice, nasal and frantic instead began to bombard me with a flurry of apologies.

"I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, so sorry, you're Chloe Beale's girlfriend right? That's what this number was saved as on her phone," I felt a rising panic and struggled to choke it down enough to force out an audible reply.

"Yes, I'm her girlfriend, what's wrong? Is she okay?"

"I'm so sorry honey, she's been in an accident down on the freeway, but they're taking her into hospital now and she's doing well, she-" Ice. I felt like ice was making it's way down my spine.

"Just tell me where, I need to be with her, where are they taking her!" my voice rose to a near shout at the last part, and Kimmy Jin shot up in bed, her signature scowl already in place. It melted faster than the ice when she saw my own face.

"Beca?" She murmured, and I saw genuine concern for the first time since meeting her. I hadn't realised that tears were already streaming down my face.

"The Emory University Hospital, just an hour from Barden." The voice on the end of the phone was cut off as a siren blared past her.

"That's her on her way now." I was gritting my teeth now, holding back sobs, shaking and clenching the sheets in a white-knuckle grip.

"Okay. Thank you. I'm going to leave now." I was already pulling on my shoes and searching for my keys.

"Don't drive yourself there hon, you don't sound in a fit state, don't you have a friend who can drive you?" I stopped in my tracks. Kimmy Jin, who could now hear the whole conversation in the otherwise silent room had stood up.

"Beca," she said quietly. "I'll take you."

I cried in front of her too many times that night. I couldn't stop thanking her as she lead me to her car and proceeded to drive us to the hospital where they had taken Chloe. Chloe and I had been dating for almost 5 months now, and Kimmy Jin had seen us together often enough to know how infatuated we were with each other, so she understood why I cried the whole way there and didn't say anything. Upon arrival, she asked if I needed her to come with me.

"I'll be alright from here. You should go and get some sleep, thank you so much for doing this." I managed a small smile to convince her that I could manage alone.

"Okay, well call me if you need anything." She retreated into her car and was gone.

I sprinted to the receptionist's desk.

"Chloe Beale." I panted, taking off again when the woman told me where I could find her. I didn't bother with the lift, instead choosing the stairs, which I took 2 at a time. When I finally reached her ward, I was gasping and sweating and crying and I probably looked about as emotionally stable as a depressed one-legged table, but I could see her through the glass in the door, a burst of fire in a pool of white and I knew that I had made it. I staggered through the sleek white door and to her bedside, my eyes fixed on her terrifyingly pale face. She was hooked up to machines and drips and wires were invading her whole body it seemed, but I clutched at her hand and felt the tentative warmth and knew that she was still in there somewhere. A nurse came over and asked who I was, and then began to fill me in on the details.

[Chloe]

_I couldn't wait to give Beca her surprise. I'd been out shopping for some school supplies when I spotted it in the window of a shop and I knew that I had to get it for her. Maybe the excitement fueled my mood even more than a selection of my favourite songs blaring from my car radio, and I sped home happy. I don't know what happened. A lorry just appeared and then it was all gone. Everything. Gone. _

[Beca]

She'd been involved in a crash with a swerving lorry, hit it head on, and was lucky to have survived in reality. She was suffering from multiple fractures to both of her legs as they had been trapped in the twisted metal of the footwell, a punctured lung, concussion and several lacerations across her face and upper torso. She was on pain medication, so wouldn't be expected to wake up for a while yet. Why didn't I go home and get some rest? I shook my head at the nurse, and curled up in the hard plastic chair beside Chloe's bed, still reaching out to clasp her hand. I don't really know how long I was there for, but when I looked up, I found those familiar blue eyes staring back at me.

_Eyes like a car crash_

_I know I shouldn't look but I can't turn away._

_Body like a whiplash,_

_Salt my wounds but I can't heal the way_

_I feel about you._

It was pain and it was light. I gazed at her and saw the cracks in her smile as she winced with every breath, and although it burned to see her that way I was enraptured with that smile, knowing now how close I had come to losing it. She was here and that in itself was pain and light in a terrifying mix. I kissed her ghostly white forehead and comforted her, all the while contemplating how precious she really was to me.

_And on my deathbed, all I'll see is you_

_The life may leave my lungs_

_But my heart will stay with you_

_That little kiss you stole_

_It held my heart and soul_

_And like a deer in the headlights I meet my fate_

_Don't try to fight the storm_

_You'll tumble overboard_

_Tides will bring me back to you_


End file.
